FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 13, 2004


Representative Assembly adopts 9 proposals to amend FHSAA Bylaws

GAINESVILLE – The Seventh Representative Assembly of the Florida High School Athletic Association on Tuesday adopted nine proposals to amend FHSAA Bylaws, including one proposal that will change the date on which a student’s four consecutive years of high school athletic eligibility begins.

Assembly delegates considered and voted on 13 proposals to amend the Association’s bylaws during its two-day meeting at the FHSAA headquarters in Gainesville. Fifty of the 61 delegates were in attendance and voted on all proposals. A minimum of 34 positive votes constituted the necessary two-thirds vote for adoption of a proposal. All proposals adopted take effect July 1, 2004.

Four proposals, including three that would have lowered the age limit for participation in high school athletics, failed to receive the necessary two-thirds vote. One other proposal was withdrawn.

Under the provisions of Proposal 2004-04, sponsored by Commissioner Robert W. Hughes, Bylaw 11.5.1 will be changed to state that a student will have four consecutive years of high school athletic eligibility from the date the student first enrolls in the ninth grade. The bylaw currently states that a student has four consecutive years of eligibility from the date the student first successfully completes the eighth grade. The proposal was adopted by a vote of 49-1. It will apply to all students – those currently in grades 9 through 12 as well as those entering the ninth grade in Fall 2004 for the first time.

“We’ve taken a pretty good beating in court this year over this one bylaw,” Hughes said. “It was intended to discourage the red-shirting of student-athletes between the eighth and ninth grades. But what it really did was cause a number of students whose parents chose to retain them in the eighth grade for legitimate reasons to lose their senior year of eligibility. That raises the murky issue of intent, and it is very difficult to convince a judge that a parent’s intent is anything other than what the parent says it is.”

Added Hughes: “Those parents who really wanted to hold their kids back for athletic reasons – to gain physical maturity – could do it between the seventh and eighth grades without penalty to those students. So the rule was probably hurting more kids than it was helping.”

The other seven proposals adopted by the Representative Assembly were:

• Proposal 2004-02, which passed 50-0, amends Bylaw 11.2.3 and requires students who enroll in a member school at any time after the eighth grade to provide to that school evidence of grades earned at all schools previously attended since entering the ninth grade, as well as the grading scales utilized by each of those schools.

• Proposal 2004-03, which passed 49-1, amends Bylaw 11.4.3 and requires principals to have reasonable evidence upon which to base decisions to withhold approval of applications for waiver of the Association’s transfer rule rather than on unsubstantiated suspicions raised by rumor or hearsay.

• Proposal 2004-06, which passed 49-1, amends Bylaw 11.5.4 and cites attendance at summer school, dual enrollment in adult education program courses, on-line virtual high school enrollment and/or other alternative programs as examples of reasonable efforts by a student to make up credits not earned that may be taken into consideration by a sectional appeals committee or the Board of Directors in considering an undue hardship request seeking a waiver of the limit of eligibility on behalf of the student.

• Proposal 2004-10, which passed 48-2, amends Bylaw 11.14.1 and empowers the Commissioner to take into account all information known to him or her in ruling on the eligibility of a student rather than just on the information provided by the school submitting the ruling request. Rulings based on what is later determined to be incomplete or inaccurate information may be retracted and penalties, if deemed appropriate by the Commissioner, may be imposed on the offending school.

• Proposals 2004-11 and 2004-13, both of which passed 49-1, amend Bylaws 13.1.1 and 13.2.3 respectively and adjust the language relative to the authority of the sectional appeals committees to accurately match the provision of the Florida Statutes upon which the bylaws are based. That language empowers the sectional appeals committees only to approve or deny, but not modify, undue hardship requests and appeals of decisions of the Commissioner filed by member schools. The authority to modify such requests and appeals resides solely with the Board of Directors.

• Proposal 2004-12, which passed 49-1, amends Bylaw 13.1.3 and better defines for sectional appeals committees and the Board of Directors what may and may not constitute sufficient grounds for granting an undue hardship waiver request.

• Proposal 2004-14, which passed 50-0, creates Bylaws 13.1.5 and 13.2.6 and requires member schools that file appeals or undue hardship waiver requests for consideration by the sectional appeals committees and Board of Directors to ensure the information submitted in support of their cases is complete and accurate. Favorable decisions granted on what is later determined to be incomplete or inaccurate information must be withdrawn and the penalties provided for in the bylaws shall apply.

Failing to receive the necessary two-thirds vote required for adoption were:

• Proposal 2004-01, which failed 25-25, would have required student-athletes to attend school for at least one-half day to be eligible to participate in an interscholastic contest on that same school day.

• Proposal 2004-007, which failed 8-42, would have established a student’s 19th birthday as the date on which the student would become ineligible due to age and further stipulated that if the 19th birthday fell within a sports season the student would not be eligible to begin competition in that sports season.

• Proposal 2004-08, which failed 27-27, would have established a student’s 19th birthday as the date on which the student would become ineligible due to age except that if the 19th birthday fell within a sports season the student would be eligible to complete competition in that sports season.

• Proposal 2004-09, which failed 25-25, would have established that a student would become ineligible on the date he or she reached the age of 19 years 6 months.

Members of the Greater Miami Athletic Conference withdrew Proposal 2004-05, which they sponsored, following the passage of Proposal 2004-04. Their proposal would have amended the initial date of the four-year limit of eligibility for the benefit of international students whose school years in their native countries do not run concurrently with that of Florida.

The Florida High School Athletic Association is the governing body for interscholastic athletic competition in Florida. It has a membership of 700 middle, junior and senior high schools.

The FHSAA Representative Assembly is the legislative authority of the Association. It is empowered to adopt or reject proposals to amend the organization’s bylaws that are sponsored by member schools, advisory committees, the Board of Directors and the Commissioner. The Representative Assembly meets annually. Its next meeting is April 11-12, 2004.

Contact:
Jack Watford
Director of Communications, FHSAA
(352) 372-9551 ext. 170
jwatford@fhsaa.org